[centre] [h3][color=fdc68a]~Graham Turner~[/color][/h3] Uhf… The look in the Russian’s eyes grew harsh. Graham could feel the years of life he had left slipping by, could hear the sound of bagpipes at his horribly early grave. It was as if at first he was lifted by a harmless arm of your standard Chuck E. Cheese's crane game, a little arm that was so weak, if it could hold anything than it was a miracle. But now? Goodbye, crane game, hello crane. An industrial, superpowered crane of doom. Doomcrane. And Doomcrane had but one single purpose in life: the eradication of all tiny gingers. Then she grinned. And Graham’s blood chilled in his veins. [color=red][b]“I beg your pardon?”[/b][/color] [color=fdc68a][i]Goodbye everybody - I've got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth. Mama, ooo - (anyway the wind blows).I don't want to die. I sometimes wish I'd never b- wait, wuh?[/i][/color] Graham found himself rising once more. Which was great, really. He had already accepted death for...well, he had lost count. T’was much more than what should be acceptable in the span of two days, that’s for sure. What was a little aerial death in the grand scheme of things? Suddenly, what felt like the world’s kindest, most handsome gust of wind sprung forth from the well of Liberty and Justice and delivered a tankload of Freedom upon his neck. No longer did the Red Menace hold him captive. Graham felt his feet touch the floor, good ole’ American soil. He silently thanked the Stars ‘n’ Bars, promising that should he survive this, he would dedicate his life to spreading the beauty of Capitalism and Democracy across the globe, like any true American should. … Graham blinked a couple times as the wave of patriotism passed. That was weird. He must have hit his head a few many times during the course of the last couple days... “Meredith is waiting, the bell will rin-” And then the bell rang. … [color=fdc68a][i]...did…did he say Meredith? As in, freaky monstrosity in a one creature war against all that is good and right with the world? And...bell...late…[/i][/color] [color=fdc68a][b]“AH C’MON!”[/b][/color] Graham, not even getting the privilege of resting after staring death in the face, hurried off to undoubtedly do it again. Meredith...the fucking monster. Of course she would be his first class. Of course she would. Why wouldn’t she? The universe was a fucked up child that just loved fucking with him, so why the fuck wouldn’t she be his first teacher? FUCK. Luckily, Graham DID know where this classroom was. He had heard a couple guys talking about it the previous day, after dinner. They were telling some younger dudes to avoid it or never be late. Because of the monster. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, thinking they were just being jerkish upperclassmen, but if they were talking about Meredith...well… [color=fdc68a][b]“I’m-so-sorry-that-was-rude-it’ll-never-happen-again-you’re-beautiful-bye-now!”[/b][/color] Graham had started to dart off towards the direction of Meredith’s classroom, and he could have probably done it relatively easily considering he wouldn’t have to pass Mishka and he could simply sacrifice the tall dude to get away. But he was going to play it safe. So he apologized and threw in a compliment to boot. Why? Well...girls like compliments, right? And Mishka was a girl...probably. So she’d like compliments...probably. Well, he looked at it like this: either she appreciated it, and didn’t kill him down the line, or she took a few moments to parse out what he said, which would give him enough time to get away without her killing him. We do what we must to survive, yo. [/centre] [hr] [centre] [h3][color=CD5C5C]~Gracie Turner~[/color][/h3] [color=CD5C5C][u]The storms come and go, the waves crash overhead, the big fish eat the little fish, and I keep on paddling.[/u][/color] Gracie smirked at the line. The eunuch was a crafty one, she’d give him that. [color=f7976a]"Gyah!~" [/color] Gracie, puzzled, looked off toward the sound in time to see her teacher obeying the laws of gravity and promptly finding her place upon the floor. But she didn’t let it keep her down. She let out a groan and quickly returned to her place by her desk. Something didn’t quite sit well with Gracie with the way the teacher kept giggling and grinning. Even her gaze was rather unsettling...but Gracie didn’t flinch when the blonde’s eyes passed over her and onto the others. Despite what she had initially thought, Gracie found herself rather weary of the so-called monster. Perhaps it was just the rumors. Perhaps she was damning a poor, unsuspecting teacher to an existence of fear and doubt atop nothing more than the lies and broken truths of others. After all, she hadn’t really done anything out of the ordinary. If they had meant it as a slam on her personality, well...she seemed much too bubbly to be a beast. … It really was quite frustrating. All she wanted was to grab the book that was Meredith Hillard and turned to the last page, to see how her story ended. But alas, such was beyond her abilities. Besides, it would only serve to ruin the suspense. The waiting, the unknown… The bell drew Gracie from her own thoughts. She quickly scanned the room before returning her gaze to Ms. Hillard. She frowned ever so softly. She could have sworn that Tabby had mentioned having at least the same first class...almost positive. … [color=CD5C5C][i]Is she really going to be late on the first day? What a truly lazy, unreliable little sister.[/i][/color] She smiled despite her thoughts. [color=CD5C5C][i]She never changes.[/i][/color] This time it was the teacher’s clapping that brought Gracie back. She made a rather...boastful introduction, but got right to business. Mainly it served to sweep away Gracie’s concern about the blond Biology woman. She couldn't be a monster. She seemed too...nice. Gracie actually somewhat admired her at the moment. The confidence was impressive. Perhaps she would make a splendid role model. In any case, Gracie decided that she would judge the woman based on the merit of her teaching, rather than the rumors of her humanity. Although there would remain a tinge of doubt... [/centre] [hr] [centre] [h3][color=FFB6C1]~Tabitha Turner~[/color][/h3] [color=silver][b] “Of-course-I-can-play-it!”[/b][/color] Right on! That settled it. Tabitha Turner and Anouk...something or other, would be Herculean Academy’s most righteous rockers, bonded in the most sacred tie that musicians may share. [color=FFB6C1][i]Destined to be together until they made it as a moderately successful rock group, only to fall apart after one of the members grew weary of the many, MANY nights of drug-fueled drunken debauchery with groupies, sluts, and prostitutes and finally checks into rehab, after which they’ll come out and rejoin the band, but it’ll never be the same dude, and eventually, after a few less than stellar albums, we’ll dissolve the band, citing ‘creative differences’ as the main cause for the break and sure, a few of us might join other bands or even pursue that solo career we’ve always dreamed of, but let’s face it, it’ll never be the same. Indeed, we’ll be, like, doomed to live a life of obscurity after that, fading out of the limelight, and into the dark, depression that haunts all former rockstars. We’ll search for the one drug that can maybe help to recapture the magic of that time, but it’ll never work. And well probably go broke doing so, until ultimately, we end up cold and alone on the dirty streets of L.A. Maybe we’ll make a few bucks playing for passerbys, but it’ll never be enough. And then one cold, dark autumn night, we’ll be brutally beaten to death by a junkie for our instrument, which will promptly be hocked at the nearest pawn shop. The junkie will get their fix and probably OD that night. The instrument will waste away on the pawn shop wall until one day, MAYBE, a couple comes in with the little bit of extra money they’ve been able to scrape together in order to get Jr. that guitar he’s always asked about. The pawn shop owner will see that and bump up the price as much as he can, wringing the poor saps for every cent he can get. And they’ll present the guitar to the little lad, who’ll fall in love with it and get obsessed. He’ll be bad and find others that are bad. And together, they’ll get good. And then the cycle repeats itself.[/i][/color] … [color=FFB6C1][i]...what the actual fuck, Tabby? No more Behind the Music. Ever.[/i][/color] [color=silver][b]“Want me to demonstrate it to you?”[/b][/color] Tabitha met Anouk’s smile with her own then strolled over to her own bass. [color=FFB6C1][b]“Nah, I wantcha ta jam with me.”[/b][/color] Tabby was just about to pick up the beast when she heard the piercing doom that was the bell. The color left her already pale skin. She turned back to Anouk who seemed to be experiencing the same fear she was. “Euhm… Was that the bell? Please don’t tell me that was the bell. I don’t wanna end up becoming teacher food!” She sounded worried. If she had the same class Tabby did, then she had every reason to be. This teacher was supposedly a freakin’ nightmare. She had heard that one time, Meredith (she supposedly didn’t like Ms. Hillard) caught some dude cheating on a test and had him stay over after class. She then went all medieval on his ass and chopped off his hand and made him eat it! Or this other time, she caught some peeps making out outside her classroom, so she chopped them up and fed them to frogs. They say that year, the class doing the dissections found bits and pieces of the lovers [i] in the frogs.[/i] Tabitha shivered but didn’t say anything. She didn’t want to freak out Anouk over nothing. [color=FFB6C1][b]“Hey, it’s all good, ya? You’ve got Ms. Hillard too, right? We’re fine. Let’s just go to class and explain that we got lost. We’re newbies and it’s the first day. Surely she’ll cut us a little slack.”[/b][/color] … [color=FFB6C1][b]“Alright, so we’re probably fucked. I say we go anyway, and just like, wait outside until she turns around to like, write on the board or something. Then we just sneak inside. If we get away with it, then we’re fuckin’ legends here. Whaddya say?”[/b][/color] [/centre] [hr] [centre] [h3][color=fdc68a]BONUS ROUND: Graham Turner[/color][/h3] Graham shuddered. There she was. The bane of his existence, nightmare incarnate, death as blonde bombshell… Meredith. It appeared that another Turner child had decided sneaking in would be the best course of action. … Nobody ever said they were bright children. He was barely peeking in the door, leaning deeply to even do so. It didn’t seem like anybody had noticed him. Which was good. The fewer witnesses, the better. He inched closed to the door until he was directly in front of it. Still peeking in, Graham put a hand on the handle. He wouldn’t open it, not yet at least. Not until that demon, that MONSTER, turned around. … What if it still saw him? What if it knew he was there and was just fucking with him. It might even do that too. It might even let him think he won, letting him snake his way in. But it would know, oh-ho-ho, it would know. And then it would eat him. And he would die, be it instantly as the monster chewed him, or perhaps he’d be swallowed whole and the beast would digest him to death. He shuddered again. He wished for a swift death. He scanned the room, searching for a destination. He had to have a game plan here. After a few moments, he spotted an open seat behind a blonde that seemed to be enjoying a bit of a snooze. There were three actually. Perfect. She wouldn’t be able to rat him out. Or if she did, he’d snitch on her impromptu nap. Misery loves company, dammit, and if he had to die, he wouldn’t be going alone. And with nobody on either side of him, who was to know? He traced a path from that seat down the perimeter of the classroom. He might be able to make it...there was even a pencil sharpener on the way. Which was even more perfect. He could stop there and sharpen a pencil. He might get yelled at for it, but at least that would be less severe than tardiness. Feeling like a genius, Graham smiled to himself. This was flawless. He had it all planned out. This was going great. He shifted his gaze back towards the front of the room when he...he noticed something...something...familiar… Red… Hai… Huh. There was a girl that looked very familiar up front. Rather prissy...it reminded him of Gracie a bit. But…it couldn’t be. That would be impossible. He stared harder. She was a redhead, sure. And she dressed similarly to how his sister would... And she had a very close hairstyle... and she was reading the same book that his sister was... but... that… would... mean… … [color=fdc68a][b]“Gracie?!”[/b][/color] Graham’s tongue slipped and with it, his hand, which pushed down, turned the knob. The door started to open a bit and Graham desperately tried to stop it. He lunged for the door, but misjudged his own weight distribution. He failed. He ended up tumbling forwards, crashing into the door and causing it to swing open and hit the wall. Graham himself ended up sprawled on his belly. Again. He just stared slack jawed into the classroom, not sure what was the worse thing happening here. The door creaked back, gently tapping him right in the shame. [/centre]